Ubisoft’s 2015 trip to Victorian London was a turning point. It was the last "old school" Assassin's Creed before the franchise ballooned into the massive, sometimes exhausting RPGs like Odyssey and Valhalla. When you pull up the map of Assassin's Creed Syndicate, you aren't looking at a country. You're looking at a city. That distinction matters because the scale of Jacob and Evie Frye's playground is built for verticality and speed, rather than horse-riding across empty fields.
Honestly, the map is huge. It’s roughly 30% larger than the Paris of Assassin's Creed Unity. But it feels different. It’s dense. It’s loud. It’s dirty. The Thames River isn't just a blue line on the UI; it’s a chaotic highway of moving barges and industrial sludge.
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The Seven Boroughs That Define the Map
London isn't just one big blob. The map of Assassin's Creed Syndicate is divided into seven distinct districts, and if you've played it, you know they don't just look different—they play differently.
Whitechapel and The City
Whitechapel is where you start. It's gritty. It's poor. The buildings are lower, which is kind of a relief when you’re still getting used to the grappling hook. Then you move into The City. This is the financial heart. The streets get wider, the buildings get taller, and suddenly the lack of a "sprint" button makes sense because you’re meant to be using the carriages or the zip-line. The contrast is jarring in a good way.
Westminster and Lambeth
Westminster is the "postcard" London. You’ve got Big Ben (officially the Elizabeth Tower, for the history nerds), the Houses of Parliament, and Buckingham Palace. Navigating this part of the map feels high-stakes. The guards are everywhere. Compare that to Lambeth, which feels like a sprawling industrial yard filled with hospitals and chimneys.
Southwark, Bermondsey, and The Strand
Southwark is all about the railways. The map here is dominated by massive brick arches and tracks. The Strand is the opposite—it’s the luxury shopping district. If you’re looking for the high-end feel of 1868, this is where the map peaks. It's vibrant and packed with NPCs who actually look like they have somewhere to be.
Why the Scale Changed the Gameplay
The streets in Syndicate are wide. Like, really wide. This was a massive complaint back in 2015 because it made traditional parkour—the "leaping from rooftop to rooftop" stuff—nearly impossible in certain areas. Ubisoft's fix was the Rope Launcher.
Some people hated it. They said it turned the game into Batman: Arkham London. But look at the map of Assassin's Creed Syndicate objectively. Without that grappling hook, traversing the City of London would be a nightmare. The map was designed for the tool. The distance between a building on one side of Fleet Street and the other is too far for a leap of faith. The map forced the evolution of movement.
The Thames: A Moving Map
Most open-world maps treat water as a barrier or a boring transit zone. In Syndicate, the Thames is arguably the most complex part of the entire layout. It’s a constant stream of "log-hopping." You aren't swimming; you're jumping across moving tugboats and barges.
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It’s dynamic. If you stand still on the map near the river, the environment moves around you. This was a technical feat at the time. It makes the world feel alive in a way that the static forests of Valhalla often don't. You can actually use the river to fast-travel in a sense, just by hitching a ride on a boat and watching the city go by.
The Secret World War I Map
A lot of people forget this. There’s a "hidden" section of the map of Assassin's Creed Syndicate that you access through a portal at the eastern edge of the Thames. It teleports you to London during the Blitz in 1916.
It’s not just a tiny room. It’s a fully realized, though smaller, chunk of the map centered around the Tower Bridge. You play as Lydia Frye. This section changes the map's vibe entirely—suddenly there are planes overhead and anti-aircraft guns. It’s one of those rare "Easter egg" moments that actually provides hours of real gameplay. It’s a map within a map.
Borough Liberation: Cleaning Up the UI
The way you interact with the map is through "Borough Liberation." You take over zones. You kill a gang leader. You do a bounty hunt.
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- Gang Strongholds: Clearing these removes the "red" zones from your mini-map.
- Templar Hunts: Standard assassination missions that pop up as you explore.
- Child Liberation: Usually set in the industrial factories of the East End.
The map starts off cluttered. It’s classic Ubisoft. Icons everywhere. But as you dismantle the Blighters (the rival gang), the map physically changes. Your gang, the Rooks, starts appearing on street corners. The map reflects your progress in a way that feels tangible.
A Note on Historical Accuracy
Ubisoft’s researchers, including historians like Jean-Vincent Roy, worked to make this map feel authentic. While they had to "squish" certain areas for gameplay, the placement of major landmarks like St. Paul’s Cathedral is spot on. They used Victorian-era maps to get the alleyway layouts right. Of course, they added more handholds and conveniently placed haystacks, but the "bones" of London are there.
The map isn't a 1:1 scale—that would be miserable to play. It’s a "best of" reel of London architecture.
How to Handle the "Map Fatigue"
If you’re looking at the map of Assassin's Creed Syndicate today and feeling overwhelmed, don't try to clear it all at once. The game is best enjoyed when you treat each borough as its own mini-game.
Start in Whitechapel. Don't leave until it's green. Move to Southwark. The map is designed to be eaten in bites, not swallowed whole. The side content—like the Dickens and Darwin memories—actually gives you a reason to visit the weird corners of the map you’d otherwise skip.
Actionable Tips for Navigating Victorian London
To get the most out of the world, stop using fast travel. Seriously. The map is designed to be seen from the street level and the rooftops.
- Use the Trains: The circular railway isn't just for show. It’s a functional way to get around the map while planning your next move. Plus, your hideout is on a train. That's objectively cool.
- Look for the Viewpoints Early: Synchronizing doesn't just clear the fog; it gives you the best sense of the map's vertical scale. The climb up the Big Ben tower is still one of the best moments in the series.
- Upgrade the Carriage Skills: Since the map is built with wide roads, you'll be driving a lot. Carriages in this game feel like tanks. Use them to smash through the destructible environments that cover the map.
- Check the Thames for Loot: The river is packed with chests that are easy to grab while you're navigating the boat traffic.
The map of Assassin's Creed Syndicate remains a high-water mark for urban design in gaming. It’s a dense, vertical playground that captures a very specific moment in history. Even years later, swinging across the rooftops of the Strand feels better than trekking across miles of empty digital wilderness. It’s a reminder that sometimes, smaller and denser is better than "infinite" and empty.